GAMELIFE: Would you get a mechanical keyboard? + Semi review of Corsair Vengeance K70

I recently got a Mechanical keyboard, after having my Gateway chiclet keyboard for a good five years....it was time for me to part ways. Despite the fact that my old keyboard had the letters wearing off, I was being really stingy about buying a new keyboard. Plus since I knew gaming was a part of my life, I wanted invest in a good gaming keyboard if anything. My boyfriend decided to buy me a mechanical keyboard for my birthday (and/or Christmas since my bday is on the 22nd ;__;) and I'm pretty happy with it so far. 

170/365: Inner stripes

I've had this obsession with Kate Spade for a while and I realized it was because 'she' and I both share this love for black and white stripes! I love the subtlety of stripes on handbags, especially when it's on the interior. It just gives an interesting contrast that makes it that much less boring. Of course, this bag is not from Kate Spade. I actually picked it up at TJ Maxx for about $40 as my main carry-all. And I've been using it mainly when I'm traveling somewhere far or going to school. Great bag, great price, and interior stripes. Perfect.

Beauty In The Mundane: Lazy Sunday afternoon

Another relaxing weekend up in Oxnard. I took some photos of the little flowers that grow in those ugly hedge bushes in people's yards. There was really nothing else to photograph where I was that I haven't photographed already, but you can always capture nature. Plus, photographing mundane things is kind of my forte. Mostly because I never have anything interesting to photograph and when there is something interesting, I don't know how to capture it.

I was supposed to work on my midterm stuff Sunday but I left my macbook charger at home. But you know what, I needed the break. I needed to just relax and take it easy. A little R&R never hurt anyone.

Then Monday rolled around as fast as I could blink. And the daily grind continues.

Design project: Magazine cover

Recreating magazine covers has never been an interest to me, in my 6+yrs of learning graphic design. Which is odd because I always buy magazines as a source of visual inspiration. I guess in a way it seemed really 'played out' since it's one of the most commonly designed things. Not to sound hipster or anything.....

(I just did.......)

Since I'm working on my portfolio, I'm trying to create some versatility. Since I never actually designed a magazine cover, I thought--hell, why not. I even went on to design a little fashion article for it, which took me way longer than I had anticipated.
The cover itself didn't take very long to design, but it does take a lot more thought than you would think. I always thought 'pff' a magazine cover is probably one of the easiest things to design, but boy was I wrong. If you want it to look nice, not boring, and somewhat original, it will definitely take some thought.


First you'll need some inspiration. I went with a fashion magazine, because that's what I love! And holy hell do I have a lot of them.
I used some handy little 'post its' to mark the pages I find the best inspiration from.

I made up the magazine because it seemed like it would be more legit that way. Also, I totally didn't steal this picture of Emma Stone from Vogue magazine........

And here's the fashion article with a bunch of outfits from Emma Stone. I didn't want to do a text based article because I had no idea what I would write about and I didn't want to "Lorem ipsum" it. That's too easy. And although this looks like it was generated with Polyvore, I actually had to construct everything through photoshop. Since you only have a certain given amount of space to work with, you have to consider the composition. I thought it would be easy to just put all the outfits in a section, until I had to put text in. Oh God....I give so much more respect to magazine designers now.

It took me about four hours on this ONE PAGE alone (including the time it took me to gather the resources) but then again, I am really bad at LAYOUTS in general, so inadvertently this turned out to be a challenge for me. Oh well. Good learning experience. I have learned I still hate doing layout.

Day 136: Tiny Beauty

One of my favorite things about photography is the ability to 'macro' shoot objects. This means no matter how tiny an object may seem to the human eye, a camera can always capture the essence of that object through a macro view (aka, zoomed up, with a background blur to differentiate the object from the background). This is probably one of the tiniest flowers I had ever seen, which I mistook as weed (not that kinda weed.....) And I remember why I love photography again.